


Fetters

by Angelic_Noir



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Light Angst, M/M, Masturbation Interruptus, Porn with Feelings, Prison Sex, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:57:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelic_Noir/pseuds/Angelic_Noir
Summary: After Griffin's death, Ash wanted to forget. Max wanted to remember.





	Fetters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salmon95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon95/gifts).



"Tastes bland,” Ash says, wincing at the joyless bite of whiskey.

Max chuckles under his breath, meeting Ash’s gaze as he takes another shot out of spite. 

Max and Ash spend the better part of several hours alternating between shots of whiskey and sharing anecdotes about Griffin. Ash remembers his mortal fear of cockroaches and how pale his face would become when he chased after one with a newspaper. Max shares a conspiratorial smirk as he reminisces about Griffin being more apt to run from a snake than gunfire. The conversation flows easily and the burn of the whiskey softens into something almost pleasurable. Ash feels limber and relaxed, far more than he has in a long time. 

Maybe it’s the way the austere light catches his features, but for a moment Max almost looks handsome, he thinks; he notices his strong jaw and wonders what the faint shadow of stubble along it would feel like beneath his fingertips, against his own bare skin. The orange jumpsuits are ugly and garish but somehow it brings out Max’s eyes, bluer than a cloudless summer sky. Max is muscle and poorly-disguised strength; he can still feel a throbbing pain in his stomach from when he and Max snarled and swung at each other.

Except the hot, constricting feeling lingers and spreads in a way that a bruise doesn’t, acute in a way that the slow burn of alcohol isn’t. He can feel both, and yet the creeping warmth — divorced from both the contusion and the liquor — lingers.

He knows this feeling and quietly swears under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’. I’m tired. Need some sleep,” he murmurs, curling into a ball and staring resolutely at the photos taped to the wall.

"Me too, kid. G’night, Ash.”

“G’night, Max.”

* * *

Ash has it down to a science.

The other inmates each take approximately two minutes each to shower — just enough time for them to work the shitty prison shampoo into a decent lather, scrub off as much grime and sweat as they can, and get rinsed before the hot water timer kicks in. Once the timer hits two minutes, the only thing one has to look forward to is ice water.

Some men risk it; if the pipes rattle, that means someone was desperate enough for privacy to risk his balls shriveling up from the cold.

There are twenty shower stalls and one hundred men in his pod. They’re given one hour to shower, but most of them are showered, dried, and rushing out the door to chow hall within half an hour of the assigned wash-up period.

Somewhere in the remaining half hour is when Ash chooses to bathe. Anytime before that is too risky. He’s willing to endure lukewarm water from a nearly-emptied hot water tank if it means he can shower in relative peace .

Except now he wishes it were colder. 

He curses himself for noticing stupid details, for being stupid enough to think Max was handsome. 

“He’s a stupid geezer who couldn’t even punch me decently,” he hisses, even while  his hand arcs toward the raging contradiction between his legs. 

For the first time in years, he had dreamed in color. He dreamed of a low, gruff laugh in his ear and hot breath against his neck. He dreamed of a large hand carding through his hair, concrete against his kneecaps, and bitter warmth in his mouth, nearly suffocating. He dreamed of hands branding his skin and coaxing his body towards wantonness, fingers in his mouth and inside of him until they’re replaced by a searing heat that steals his breath.

He had awakened just before his body abandoned itself completely, painfully hard but unsatisfied, and desperately hoped that he only cried out Max’s name in his dream. 

The showers are long abandoned by the time he arrives; the floors are still damp, the air humid from accumulated steam. Ordinarily he’d be proud of his foresight, but right now he’s too strung-up to focus on anything other than needing to secure a stall for himself.

The water streaming from the faucet was nauseating, too cool to feel good but too warm to starve the gnawing heat. His body feels like it’s on fire; he reaches between his legs and nearly sobs from the encouraging wave of relief that washes over him. 

There isn’t enough time for finesse and daydreaming; he can save sentimentality for when he isn’t jerking off with a two-minute timer. He spits into his hand, coating himself and shivering from the contact. His hands are rough, and it’s frighteningly easy imagine that they’re a little larger, a little more calloused than his. The lukewarm water could almost feel like body heat, like someone pressed against his back and stroking him in time to the urgent canting of his hips. The patter of the water is little more than whispering static, easy to imagine shrouding the sound of Max gasping against him.

Electricity surges through him; he feels his stomach lurch with a familiar sense of impeding inevitability. He can feel himself growing slick within his own grasp and leans into the sensation of free fall, willing himself to come undone.

“Ash! Ash, are you alright!?”

Ash eyes fly open.

Of all the fucking times for the old man to chase him down.

He takes a deep breath and wills himself to steady his voice.

“I’m takin’ a shower, Max, I’m fine,” he says, cursing himself for the slight waver in his voice.

He can hear Max’s footsteps grow louder, stopping just before the thin plastic curtain.

“You sure? You don’t sound alright.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats. Max’s low voice sends another tendril of pleasure down his spine; he risks the smallest of strokes and has to bite his lip to silence the appreciative moan that threatens to escape.

Max coughs the way one does when they’ve witnessed they shouldn’t.

"… alright. I’ll… erm. I guess I’ll see you at chow. Didn’t see any other guys around so you… should have plenty of time.”

Ash’s curiosity wins out.

“What’s got you so weird all of a sudden?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, kid. You forgot your soap, and there’s only one reason why someone as sharp as you wouldn't have noticed. No one takes a shower this late, this cold, unless they need… privacy.”

Ash is silent, not sure if the heat rising in his face is misplaced desire or humiliation.

“Anyways, I’ve got your stuff here. If you want, I can poke my arm in through the curtain and leave it for you. Don’t want folks asking questions when you leave with a towel and no soap.”

A muscular arm, soap in hand, reaches tentatively through the curtain. Impulse surges through Ash, and before he can stop himself he wraps his hand around Max’s wrist and pulls.

“What the—?!”

Max stumbles over his feet, falling headfirst through the curtain. The bright orange of his jumpsuit quickly becomes dingy as he’s soaked.

“What the hell, A…sh…?”

Ash couldn’t have answered even if he wanted to. Something needy and violent rages within him, the locus of the vivid dreams from the night prior close enough to touch, to taste. Ash knows that this is substitution; his heart, though pounding furiously, still feels fragile and heavy, a hair’s width from the verge of collapsing under the weight of its grief. His breaths are short and rapid, somewhere between panting and sobbing. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ash whispers, uncertain if his ego would be better spared covering his arousal or the competing emotions etched across his face. “I don’t know what’s coming over me, but I can’t stop, I can’t—”

“You don’t want this, kid,” Max says in a low voice; Max’s face is beet red, and Ash has heard this tone countless times before, though never quite as earnest or sincere.

_I don’t want to want this._

“I don’t?” Ash lets his voice slip a few octaves, past the point of deniability, past the point of pretending that the slow smile creeping into his face is anything other than a blatant invitation.

“I can’t,” Max says, gulping and taking a step back. 

“Why not? We’re both willing, aren’t we?”

Ash expects the typical rebuttal:

_I’m too old. You’re too young. My wife would kill me. This isn’t me._

“You… look too much like him,” Max says. A knife plunges into Ash’s heart and twists mercilessly; the mingled lust and grief compounds.

“Even more reason why we should. We both need this. I need to forget; you need to remember. It doesn’t have to mean anything else,” Ash says, taking a step back until his back is flush with the wall. He palms himself, letting his eyes flutter shut and lips part in a sigh.

“Ash, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Max’s eyes are wild, trying to look anywhere but Ash’s bare skin and the hand wrapped around the unquestionable rebuttal to his statement. Ash grins, spreading his legs a little wider, strokes growing a little bolder. He can feel water trickling against his back, finding the dips and curves that would welcome Max if he allowed himself to indulge. 

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Not even once? I look so much like him, after all,” he says, voice soft, almost drowned out by the water gushing from the faucet. He bites his lip as his own arousal threatens to drown him, his other hand snaking towards a nipple and grazing it lightly with a fingernail.

“Just this once,” Ash purrs, dropping his voice several octaves. His voice no longer sounds like his own — doesn’t sound like any that he knows — but the effect on Max is immediate; his face pales while the tenting between his legs becomes more obvious. His eyes gaze into a place millions of miles away, even while his legs seem to slowly close the chasm between them, step by agonizing step until Max’s legs are nearly flush with his own.

Ash slides down onto one knee, a perverse mockery of a proposal, and reaches towards Max’s zipper. The sound seems to snap Max from his daze; he blinks several times, pale face becoming scarlet as he sees blond hair and slim fingers between his legs. 

“Ash, wai—” Max cries before his protests dissolve in a low hiss of pleasure as Ash’s tongue just barely grazes the tip of his cock.

Ash looks up, green eyes wide and indecent, watching Max’s expression melt as he slowly licks around the head. 

The demanding heat in his mouth is so much better than he’d imagined; Ash closes his mouth around the head and draws Max in, savoring the way his length feels and tastes against his tongue. He can’t help himself; he laps at the shaft, coaxing it further towards the back of his throat with a satisfied hum.

“Jesus Christ, Ash,” Max whispers, hands clenching helplessly at his sides. Ash’s free hand guides Max’s towards the crown of his head, encouraging him to find purchase in the blond locks — seemingly begging to be caressed, to be pulled. Max sighs before carding his hands through Ash’s hair, much more tender than expected; far from the sparks of pain he’s accustomed to, he feels tendrils of pleasure from the touch. He moans appreciatively, and the fingers in his hair tighten.

The act itself is familiar, but he never thought it could feel this good; he can’t get enough of the heat in his mouth, the suggestive bitterness on his tongue, and the way Max’s breath quickens as Ash takes him all way down his throat, almost swallowing him. Unbidden, Max’s hips jerk forward, suffocating him; Ash’s eyes quickly fill with tears, but something about the sheer greed of it excites him. He strokes himself desperately, torn between the building pleasure between his legs and the impatient lust in his mouth. Max’s cock fucks his mouth while damp curls graze his nose.

“H-hey, back off, I’m… getting close,” Max says through gritted teeth, even while he guides his cock further into the lush, wet heat engulfing it. Even in the throes of pleasure, Max is gentle, never seeking more than what Ash offers; the hands in his hair caress rather than tug. 

Ash slowly pulls away, lapping and sucking at him with each inch of loss; he looks up and sees Max watching, seeming entranced by the sight of Ash’s lips, slick with saliva, wrapped around his cock. 

“You’re still so hard,” Ash whispers, licking the small bead of precum glistening at the tip. “You don’t plan to just leave it like this, do you?”

“As opposed to…?”

Ash doesn’t answer, bringing Max’s fingers to his mouth and sucking on them as though they were sweet. They don’t taste remarkably different from Max’s cock, and it’s terribly easy to pretend that his lips are wrapped around it once more, that the hand pumping his own cock furiously is someone else’s.

Ash removes Max’s finger’s from his mouth, suddenly feeling self-conscious — he had no idea if Max had ever been with men, nor if he knew what was supposed to follow.

“I… can just finish you off with my mouth, if you prefer,” Ash says, avoiding the simmering heat he knew he’d find in Max’s gaze. He manages to lift his gaze high enough to see Max’s lips, and is surprised to find a smile equal parts fond and erotic. 

“You think I have no idea why you just did that, don’t you?”

“Do you?” Ash asks, eyebrows raised defiantly.

“I can guess,” he says, fingers trailing feather-light against the curve of Ash’s ass and the backs of his calves, leaving goosebumps in their wake. 

“Tell me.”

Max brings his hand to his mouth; a flare of heat erupts in Ash's stomach as he realizes they’re the same fingers he himself at sucked at before. Max sucks at them lewdly, not breaking eye contact,  as though wanting to make sure Ash saw every finger as it was licked, every inch coated with spit. Once he’s satisfied, his arms wrap around Ash; he stiffens as a moist finger dips and circles the rim of his entrance.

“What I think is that you want me to fuck you nice and good with these,” he says, pressing in with a finger, achingly slow. Ash shudders from the sensation, mouth hanging open in a silent moan. He had expected it to hurt, instead finding that it wasn’t nearly enough to soothe the ache. He clutched Max’s shoulders helplessly, panting softly as Max probes him, cruel and slow, as if to highlight how much more he knew Ash wanted.

“You’re not going to be content with one, though,” he whispers, his lips close enough to Ash’s ear to feel his hot, feverish breath; Ash feels the ghost of a second finger graze the rim before joining the first.

“You’re going to want more — a second,” a low purr and drawn-out pumps of his fingers, “followed by a third.” As promised, a third finger teases his entrance, only intruding once Ash is gasping and desperate around the two fingers loosening him up. He can feel Max’s cock bob against his stomach, smearing evidence of Max’s own need across his skin. 

“And then?” Ash gasps, clawing at Max’s back as he fucks himself on Max’s fingers, urging them as deep as they can go. One of Max’s fingers grazes somewhere deep inside him and he howls with pleasure, almost coming undone on the spot.

Max withdraws his fingers, stroking himself roughly and groaning under his breath. Before Ash can process what’s happening, his back is pinned to the wall, his legs lifted and spread wantonly. He can feel Max’s cock brush against his entrance, but Max’s hesitation is evident. Even despite the mutual lust surging between them, Max still worries about him.

“Normally, we would do something… like this. But we don’t need to. We shouldn’t… it would be much smarter if we didn’t,” he mutters, a flash of self-loathing pulling the corners of his mouth. Ash strokes Max’s back softly, willing the senseless lust coiling in his stomach to settle.

“If I was smart, I wouldn’t be in here; neither would you. I don’t give a shit if this is smart or dumb; this makes it easier to forget. I need this,” he confesses.

Max looks like he wants to say countless things —  _this is fucked up, this is wrong, this is exactly what I need_.

Instead he says nothing, unnervingly quiet as he aligns himself with Ash’s entrance. He presses forward, wringing a shattered moan from the both of them. Ash feels himself grow light-headed as Max’s cock fills him, larger and harder than he had dreamed about; he can’t help but whimper from the pleasure of it.

Max slowly inches forward until his hips are flush with Ash’s, completely inside of him. His breathing is labored, muscles strained as he seems to war with competing impulses:  _destroy him_ and  _be gentle._

“Y-you okay?” he asks, voice ragged and husky. 

“Shut up and fuck me, Max,” Ash snarls, shifting his hips just enough for the slightest friction and a responding growl of pleasure from Max. He feels Max’s grip tighten on his hips and braces himself.

Max uses Ash’s body as leverage, withdrawing slightly before thrusting harshly again. Sweet, blissful pleasure burns through Ash’s veins; far from pain, Ash feels his body beg for more of Max, desperate to be ravaged until he can think of nothing but Max’s cock stretching and filling him.

Ash can hardly moan, can hardly breathe, his breath stolen from him with every violent thrust as he feels himself being pistoned against Max’s arousal; vaguely, he wonders why such a familiar, crass way of fucking fills him with pleasure rather than dread. He can feel Max’s hands dig into the fleshy mounds of his ass, hard enough to bruise but careful enough to only ache. 

Max’s name leaves Ash’s lips as a series of blissful sighs, his climax approaching; he can feel his spine tingle and stomach lurch in anticipation. 

“God, Griffin,” Max whispers under his breath, his voice strangely solemn. Something sharp and painful lodges itself in Ash’s chest, finding purchase in the hollow carved out since news of his brother’s passing. Ash opens his eyes and looks up to find that Max’s face is red and a thin line of tears runs down his cheek.

Ash says nothing, content to lose himself to the haze turning his thoughts into mist, to the blinding flame that consumes him. Max’s name is a soft cry on his lips during a climax almost painful in its intensity.

He feels Max jerk inside of him, feels the warmth coating his insides as he finds his release. Ash's exhaustion claims him well before he hears which name Max called out in ecstasy.

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift for [Salmon95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon95/profile). 
> 
> I realize this pairing is controversial. 
> 
> I posted this work originally under a different account; there is a reason it was re-posted under this secondary name, and I would be most appreciative if you refrain from mentioning my primary account.


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